NerdWallet Super Bowl 360 Campaign

In 2025, NerdWallet decided it was time to go to the Super Bowl. As a mass awareness brand, seeking relevance among an apathetic audience, we were ready to go out with a new message to address our audience’s biggest barrier to use, and the outsized impact that comes along with Super Bowl would us a new way in to capture their attention. We developed a 360 campaign that touched TVC, in person activations, to web, digital, social, and more — featuring a new beloved beluga.

Role: Brand Design Director
Team: Deutsch (Agency), Chloe Dalby (ACD), Justin Sanders (Copy Manager), Charlene Tsang (Lead Designer), Christine Okazaki (Brand Designer), Bailey Kology (Sr. Designer), Morgan Eidson (Sr. Copywriter), Katie Booker (Sr. Manager, Production) Max Gold (Lead Producer),

The Spot

Having NerdWallet do the work for you is genius. That was the premise of our commercial — featuring a beluga with the IQ of 155, equivalent of a human genius. But don’t take it from us, take it from an actual genius.

The spot itself consisted of :60, :30s, :15s, :06s TVC across Linear, OTT, YouTube, and Social. We dropped a teaser a month before for PR and social, participated in Pre-Drop week, and officially launched during the big game. This allowed us to build intrigue and grab attention with our beluga character and celebrity voiceover (Kieran Culkin).

Activations

In addition to the spot, we also brought our Beluga to life IRL with beluga costumes running up and down Bourbon St. It ended up being a great earned moment for us, with people stopping to take pictures and share on social channels - including Amy Schumer who chose to share the photo with her 12M social followers. We partnered with dudettewithsign, resulting in thousands of shares across Instagram.

360 Campaign

In addition to the spot, Brand Studio also played a critical role in the demand capture phase. In collaboration with our brand marketing team, we created a cohesive 360 campaign to address our audience’s need in the financial category, tapping into spaces they’re already paying attention in, and pushing the boundaries of our creative ambition in socila and podcast channels. We set out to demonstrate how NerdWallet could meet them where they’re at in their financial journeys and ultimately help support business vertical growth.

Deliverables included design toolkits, social, podcast, radio, partnerships, digital, web, and into the app and product experience.

Swag

Given the traction we were getting from our Beluga friend, we wanted to go the extra mile and also create some swag for our Swag Store for his fans to wear. Thus, came the Nerdy Merch Collection. We used the swag in social giveaways, in person prizes, and also to build up hype internally with employees. The socks turned out to be one of the most popular swag items.

Where we are today

According to Nielsen, our Beluga made his splash in the most-watched Super Bowl ever, with a total of 127.7 million viewers among English, Spanish, and streaming, compared to 123.65 viewers last year. Post Super Bowl PR Coverage consistently ranking in the middle or higher tiers on various lists, including #7 Most Watched Super Bowl Commercial on YouTube. Within 24 hours, we had already hit our PR coverage goal.

On Instagram, we generated over 69.7K engagements (550%increase WoW), with our average organic reach for static content up ~120% vs previous week. On X, we saw a 269% increase in impressions, 948% increase in engagements, and 764% increase in visits. On YouTube, we saw a 200% increase in brand search.

This outsized commercial attention, social media buzz & PR activity successfully continues to translate to lifts in branded traffic and consumer intent, and for that, we consider this a success.